Sussex's most famous chalk hill figure may not be an ancient addition to the landscape but a whipper-snapper, barely 500 years old.

The Long Man of Wilmington has been claimed as the work of Anglo Saxons, Romans or as a fertility symbol from the Iron Age.

But researchers who examined the East Sussex site last year, believe the 226ft figure on the steep slope is a more recent addition to the landscape.

The team, led by Professor Martin Bell, of Reading University, found chalk rubble and bricks at the base of the Long Man that dates it from the mid-16th Century.

A surge in the amount of rubble swept down the slope about 500 years ago led researchers to the conclusion it must have come from the freshly-cut Long Man.

Freelance archaeologist Chris Butler said the Long Man was clean cut and not in the same style as ancient figures, such as the famous White Horse at Uffingham in Oxfordshire.

Mr Butler, who lives at nearby Berwick and was part of the research team, said: "I am quite pleased it is so recent. As a prehistoric or Roman figure it is a bit of an anomaly because it is so clean.

"I am sure people will still come up with other dates but I think the results of the work are reasonably conclusive."

The earliest known record of the Long Man, the biggest chalk figure in England, comes from 1710 but scholars have argued it was a feature before Roman times.